Steel and Kaileigh conferred with a glance. Kaileigh shrugged.
“Rules are we have to do this by ourselves,” Steel said. “Maybe another time, man.”
“Rules are made to be broken, dude. I can make this like, way easier on you.”
“Sorry,” Steel said. “Can’t do it.”
“How does it work?” Kaileigh asked Penny, winning an angry look from Steel.
“It’s a Web-based GPS tracking system,” Penny said. “What kind of cell phone do you have?”
“An iPhone,” she said.
Steel nodded. “Me too,” he said.
“So I put this box on the lady’s car and give you the URL—the Web link—and she’ll show up on a moving map.”
“No way!” Kaileigh said.
“Way. Simple as that,” Penny said. “I don’t have to be part of the picture.”
“And you would do this because…?” Steel said.
“Because I want you to recommend me to this secret society. I help you, you help me.”
Kaileigh looked seriously tempted.
“We’re supposed to do it a different way,” Steel said.
“But we could use Penny’s thing as backup, couldn’t we? No one said anything about backup.” Kaileigh arched her eyebrows.
“It’s yours if you want it,” Penny said. He slipped the backpack off his shoulders and rummaged inside, past a laptop and a dozen other devices all tangled in a million wires.
“It’s not like there are a lot of empty taxis around,” she said, accepting a small gray box from Penny. She turned it over, examining it.
“It’s magnetic. It’ll stick most anyplace on a car.” He scribbled out a Web address, tore off a piece of notebook paper, and handed it to Kaileigh.
“I have the bus routes memorized,” Steel said. “Maybe we can follow her using the buses.”
“Dude,” Penny said, trying to sound cool, which wasn’t an option. “That is so random. Use the GPS, I’m telling you.”
The shelter’s front door swung open, a half block away.
The three kids immediately jumped into shadow. Steel peered around the edge of a shop window and then felt Penny coming up over his back, also trying to get a look. Steel elbowed Penny in the gut, trying to let him know whose assignment this was.
The woman walked briskly away from them, down the sidewalk. She stopped alongside a car.
A Volvo, four-door sedan, silver. The model number was on the trunk: S40. The car’s taillights blinked twice as she unlocked the car with a remote. Steel memorized the plate number.
There was no time for discussion. The Volvo poked its front wheels out into traffic, but the other cars remained tightly grouped, not allowing it in. Vehicles jockeyed for position amid the swirling sour exhaust and a cacophony of car horns.
“Okay,” Steel said, grabbing the gray box from Kaileigh, “I’m going to get this onto the car somehow while you switch to the other side of the road and get as far out in front of the Volvo as possible. There’s a bus stop”—he paused, squinting—“two blocks up.”
They all tracked the Volvo as it finally found its way into the clog of traffic.
“There’s no way she’s going straight at the next light,” Penny said. “She’s going to turn right. Kaileigh will need a different bus line.” Steel was about to challenge him, but Penny said, “This is my town.”
Steel squinted. “Okay. Go right. The bus stop is three blocks ahead.”
“Key in the URL,” Penny instructed. “Call Steel when you see it’s working.” He reached across and into Steel’s hands, and he pushed a button on the box.
“Go!” Steel said.
Kaileigh took off across the street.
Steel hurried up the street, keeping to the shadows, and got five stopped cars ahead of the Volvo. He ducked down and waited and, as the Volvo pulled past and stopped again, scooted behind it, ducking to avoid the car’s mirrors. The driver behind the Volvo honked loudly at Steel, but Steel dropped out of sight, reaching under the car and feeling the box take hold. He stole through the opposite row of cars and stayed down until the Volvo was well past.
When he stood, he looked across for Penny.
The boy was gone.
His phone rang, and he swung his backpack off and answered his cell.
“It’s working!” Kaileigh said excitedly. “There’s this dot moving on the map.”
“Penny vanished,” Steel said.
“You may not see him, but he’s probably there somewhere,” she said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Kaileigh passed the URL on to Steel, and the two of them followed the car for the next twelve minutes, with Steel using the city bus map in his head, to keep them both within distance of the Volvo.
Steel ran two full city blocks at an all-out sprint and boarded his third bus, eastbound on Commonwealth Avenue, a large street that paralleled the Charles River. He looked to the back of the bus, and there, as expected, was Kaileigh smiling back at him. Reuniting with her felt particularly satisfying, and confirmed the importance of everything Randolph had made him memorize.
A quarter mile later, out ahead, the Volvo turned into a driveway and disappeared behind an old building. Kaileigh and Steel disembarked from the bus two long blocks later and returned on foot.
Steel’s phone rang, and he answered, half expecting it to be Randolph congratulating them. He half expected that this was some sort of test, not an operation at all.
“Steel!” Penny’s voice. “A big guy? Tattoos? Scarf on his head?”
Steel cupped the phone. “It’s Penny. He’s asking about that guy Lyle.”
Kaileigh clearly couldn’t place the name.
“Lyle!” said Mr. Memory. “The big guy at the shelter?”
Kaileigh looked panic-struck.
“What about him?” Steel asked into the phone.
“He came out of that place like his pants were on fire. He got on a motorcycle and took off.”
“Penny, exactly how would you know this?”
“I said I wouldn’t bother you two, not that I wouldn’t check stuff out.”
“Penny…if we get caught, none of us will get into this secret society.”
“Understood,” he said. “Which is why I thought you might want to know about the dude on the motorcycle.”
“Yeah…okay…” Steel didn’t have a smart retort for him. “Listen, we appreciate the GPS thing, but—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Penny said. “I get it.” He hung up.
“Lyle may be following us. Or trying to,” Steel told Kaileigh, correcting himself.
“What do we do?”
“Stay ahead,” Steel said. “How else do you win?”
A dead and unkempt lawn spread out in front of the rundown building, offering few places for them to hide.
“We need to get a closer look,” he said.
“Let’s not do anything stupid,” Kaileigh said.
“It’s a little late for that.”
Taddler, sprawled across the SUV bench that was pushed up against the wall, used a blue marking pen to effect deep semicircles under both eyes of the white hockey goalie mask. He held the mask out at arm’s length and examined his work approvingly.
“Come on!” said Johnny, dressed as a Harry Potter schoolboy in a black robe, looking a lot like Draco Malfoy, with a Quidditch broom, white hair, and sullen eyes.
“Cool it,” Taddler said, working with a black marker to enhance a scar on the mask. “It’s got to look right. We can’t all be altar boys.”
“I’m not an altar boy. Shut up.”
“Boys! You must hurry,” said Mrs. D., rebuking Johnny for his pestering. “The traffic is horrible.”
Taddler couldn’t believe Mrs. D. was actually going to give them a ride in her car. It was a first for the Corinthians, and one he was proud to have been chosen for. The other boys were envious, which was all that mattered. The competition within the boathouse was for Mrs. D.’s attenti
on, and little else.
The arrangements for her to drive them had been hastily put together—she’d arrived only minutes before to tell them of the change in plans—a water main break had closed the bus line west on Commonwealth. Taddler, who’d waited until the last minute to prepare his costume, found himself caught off guard. A Halloween costume shouldn’t be rushed. He didn’t appreciate being hurried. He too donned a robe, and thought it amazing that, although he and Johnny shared the robes as part of their look, Johnny came off as a choirboy, while the disturbing hockey mask turned Taddler into a homicidal maniac.
“Your tickets,” Mrs. D. said, handing them to the two boys. Several boys were missing. Taddler assumed they were already at the Armstrad Hotel; Mrs. D. had said that one way or another, all the boys would be involved with this job.
3rd Annual Halloween Charity Event for Autism! Tenright, Templeton & Lawrence read the ticket. A law firm was sponsoring the event, and Mrs. D. had apparently donated the $75.00 per ticket. Three hundred kids at a Halloween “extravaganza” at the Armstrad. There were supposed to be gift bags, candy, and games for the kids, and a silent auction for the adults. It sounded stupid to Taddler—boring—but the point wasn’t the fund-raiser; it was the job once they were inside. Mrs. D. had obviously gone to a good deal of trouble, so Taddler put down the markers and paid attention.
“You look wonderful,” she said. “That is,” she corrected herself, seeing Taddler’s disappointed face, “appropriate to the occasion. We mustn’t be late. Your marks—the boy and girl—will likely be some of the last to arrive, but no use taking chances.” She checked her watch and gasped. “Let’s get a move on.”
She took in the remaining four boys. “You will prepare the river escape as planned….” Taddler had heard nothing about any such plan. “And keep your ears to the ground. If you hear from me, it can mean only one thing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” a boy said.
“And those of you standing guard, you’re to stay on heightened alert.”
“Yes, Mrs. D.,” said another.
She motioned to Taddler and Johnny, and they stepped in behind her and followed her out of the building through a labyrinth of hallways and into air the color of charcoal. Johnny squared his shoulders, proud to be one of two boys allowed to ride in her car.
He sighed happily. This was one of the good days.
Steel and Kaileigh had just sneaked up to the side of the old crumbling boathouse when the driveway was washed in glare from head- and taillights.
“Car!” Kaileigh said, pointing.
They were trapped in the driveway. Too far from the street to make it there without being seen. Nowhere to hide.
Steel didn’t have to look up: he already had an image of the building filed in his head: five recessed windows and, above those, another three on the top floor. A slate stone roof. Three chimneys. An old television antenna, looking prehistoric. Some of the glass panes in the windows had been replaced by pieces of plywood.
“Lose the backpack and give me your foot,” he said, dumping his own backpack behind a rusted trash can.
“What?”
“Your foot!” he whispered sharply, stepping forward with cradled hands.
He stripped Kaileigh of her backpack and hoisted her. She pulled herself up, surprisingly gracefully, and scrambled onto the window ledge. He wedged the toe of his running shoe into a crack between stones and made three tries to catch hold of the ledge. Finally he pulled himself up, though the effort was anything but graceful.
“Just in time!” Kaileigh whispered, the taillights now snaking down the drive.
The same Volvo backed past. Steel leaned out to see the driver—quite possibly the woman—one boy in the front seat, and a shadow of one in the back.
He turned around to look through a grimy window, into the boathouse. “What is this place?”
“What was this place?” Kaileigh asked. “A theater or something? I think the windows are all painted on the inside.”
Some of the paint on the glass had cracked and peeled and flaked, creating peepholes through which they could see.
“Looks like a church,” he said, “not a theater.”
“It’s old enough.”
“And falling apart.”
“But isn’t that…?”
“Light!” Steel said. “Yes! It is!”
Steel tried to force his fingers into a seam between the wrought iron. “I need a thin piece of…metal, or a knife…or something.”
Kaileigh reached up into her hair and produced a hair clip. “Like this?”
He accepted the curved metal clip, impressed by how quickly she’d produced it. He slipped the clip into the window frame and moved it straight up, hearing a click. The window came open with a dull shudder of rusted hinges.
Kaileigh gasped, “Oh, no…you are not going in there!”
“Oh, yes,” Steel answered. “Most definitely yes.”
The air inside the boathouse was heavy with mildew. The bottom of the windowsill was six feet off the floor. Steel allowed his eyes to adjust, his mind snapping up images and storing them.
“Get back out here!” Kaileigh hissed. “This has nothing to do with the operation. We were told to—”
“Get a look at whoever’s connected with the woman,” Steel reminded.
“Meaning the two in the car with her.”
“We don’t know that.” He snapped his head back into the darkness, then whispered at her. “Keep it down. I think I can hear people talking.”
“I’m not going in there,” she hissed. She crossed her arms in defiance but, by doing so, threw herself off balance. Steel grabbed her by the shirt just as she was about to fall off the ledge. He strained to hold her. She caught hold of the window frame and steadied herself.
“Nice move,” he said.
“Shut up.”
“And here I was thinking you might thank me.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“There’s some furniture stacked along the wall beneath me. I’m going to climb down. Are you sure you’re not coming?”
She tried to peer inside. Then she looked behind into the dark yard. “Positive.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Help me down,” she said. “I’m out of here.”
“Don’t go! I may need you. If you have to, you can jump.”
“It’s like a mile down there.”
“Ten feet, tops. I’ll tell you what: only jump if you hear me screaming.”
“This is not part of the operation.”
“Of course it is. The woman led us here, just as Randolph said. We need to know who’s in here and get pictures if possible.” He patted his pocket, indicating his iPhone and its camera.
“We were supposed to follow her.”
“We have Penny’s GPS thing. No worries. We can track her.”
“I’m not hanging around.”
“Don’t go anywhere. Do not desert me.”
“And what about Lyle? What if he shows up? What then?”
Steel didn’t want to think about Lyle.
“If you go inside, and he shows up…” she said, “I’m jumping. I’m out of here.”
Steel felt tempted to follow through with his plan, to show her that he knew what he was doing. The problem was that her reasoning made too much sense. Being right wasn’t nearly as important as doing right, and he had a feeling she was right.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll follow the car.”
Kaileigh swelled with pride.
But just then, something moved deep inside the room. Steel pressed his finger to Kaileigh’s lips to silence her as a faint shadow spread along the far wall, and the silhouettes of two boys appeared in the hall.
“It’s not fair, her leaving us here,” a boy’s voice said. It was lower than Steel’s—the boy was older by at least a year or two. Steel couldn’t see their faces, and there wasn’t enough light for the phone’s camera.
“Who cares? Johnny and Taddle
r are the ones gonna get busted if something goes bad. Not us. Doesn’t bother me.”
Johnny and Taddler, Steel noted. The boys in the car? The reference to getting busted could mean the fund-raiser Steel and Kaileigh were supposed to attend.
“Yeah, but have you seen that place? I scouted it last week. Going to a party there? I’d do that.”
Steel sensed the bigger of the two boys turning before he actually did. He wasn’t sure if this was a result of his ga-ga training, or a sixth sense, or just blind luck. But a fraction of a second before the boy turned, Steel instinctively stepped back deeper into shadow to avoid being seen. As he did, his shoe crunched down on a piece of broken glass, and the sound echoed through the room.
Both boys turned toward the windows. His adrenaline pumping, Steel reached through the window and grabbed Kaileigh’s arm and gave a subtle push, signaling her to jump.
She sprang from the ledge, and he heard her thud to the ground. She groaned as if she’d hurt herself.
“Hey!” one of the boys shouted.
Steel stepped through the window and onto the ledge, and eased the window shut, wondering if there’d been enough light for them to see him.
“Clear!” Kaileigh hissed.
He jumped and rolled and came to his feet. Kaileigh tossed him his backpack and they took off running, she with a slight limp.
“They’ll come after us,” he warned.
“I know.”
“We need to follow the Volvo.”
“Duh! Never heard that before!”
They’d put fifty yards between themselves and the boathouse, but looking back, Steel saw several boys coming after them.
“I count four,” he said to Kaileigh.
“Do we split up?” she gasped between breaths.
Randolph had instructed them: Establish a rendezvous. Divide the pursuit. Steel didn’t like the thought of separating from Kaileigh, of risking her being caught by the boys behind them. But her bad ankle was slowing them down.
“The river,” he said. He could make out a running path down the sloping lawn, like a ribbon along the edge of the water. There were dozens, maybe a hundred or more people walking in both directions, jogging, Rollerblading beneath the lamps that lined the path. Another two people mixed in would be difficult to spot. The string of boathouses, for there were five or six in a row, offered possible places for them to hide, but Steel thought it wise to keep moving. Again, he looked back. One of the boys was exceptionally fast and had gained on them.
The Academy Page 20
